Stormborn
by Agayek
Summary: Yamatai, the Isle of Storms, was the crucible through which Taylor Hebert was reborn. Upon its shores she fought men and monsters and triumphed over them all. Now she has come home, and struggles with the one question it left her. What does that make her?
1. Becalmed: Chapter 1

**Stormborn  
****by: Agayek**

**Part 1: Becalmed**

**Chapter 1**

"_Vykhodite, ne trat'te svoye vremya_!" the man bellowed, his tone harsh and demanding. I didn't recognize the language, let alone understand it, but the way he jerked his gun around, even when barely visible in the light of the fires, was unmistakable. My eyes were wide and terrified, filled with half-shed tears. The frantic pounding of my heart beat a thunderous rhythm in my ears, almost loudly enough to cover the distant gunshots and screams that filled the air. I couldn't breath. I could barely think. My entire body was stiff and numb. I didn't want to go out there. I didn't want to die.

The rotten wood inches from my cheek exploded with a sudden, deafening bang, sending out a spray of splinters. I jerked away from the wall with a high-pitched shriek of surprise and fear as a line of red-hot fire stitched itself along my jaw.

"Out _suka_!" the man bellowed again. He kicked the wall of the half-collapsed shack I'd chosen as my hiding place hard enough that the whole thing shook. A cloud of dirt and flakes of rotten wood rained down throughout the whole shack. I flinched back and ducked my head, unable to suppress the shiver as I felt it settling into my hair. "Now!"

"Okay!" I yelped, unable to keep the shrill panic out of my voice. I instinctively tried to raise my arms and winced as the coarse rope pinning my wrists together behind my back dug into them. The skin on my wrists felt raw already and I wouldn't be surprised if I was bleeding. I did my best to ignore it and started moving jerkily toward the shack's only entrance. "Okay. I'm coming out. J-just don't shoot."

The grin the man wore as I squirmed out of the shack's narrow entrance was an ugly, brutal thing, a fitting match to the look in his eyes. My mouth went dry at the sight. I had to force my body to keep moving, but even then I couldn't stop my hands from shaking. This man had killed Patrick without a second thought, and he hadn't hesitated to order his thugs to kill the rest of the Endurance's crew who'd been caught. I didn't want to think about what he wanted to do to me.

As soon as I was out of the shack, he grabbed my shoulder and shoved me back against the wall. "You should not have run _suka_," he said, his voice low and oily. He pressed in tight against me, trapping me against the wall with his body. "You just make it worse."

The hand on my shoulder slid down my arm then onto my shirt. I shuddered as his hand brushed over my chest and down to my hip. It slid under the hem of my shirt and started to slide back up even as his other hand started loosening his belt.

My blood went cold. Not that. Anything but that.

The gut-wrenching shock must have shown on my face, because his grin grew wider and more feral. He made a sound, a kind of low, sadistic noise that might almost have been a chuckle and made to say something. I didn't listen. I had to escape, now. I'd rather eat a bullet than let this happen.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I shoved off the wall and slammed my head into his face as hard as I could. His nose broke with an audible crunch. Warm blood splattered on my forehead and the would-be rapist staggered back. I did my best to ignore the multi-colored stars dancing in my eyes and pushed past him, giving him a shove with my shoulder as I went. He staggered back but somehow managed to grab my arm before I could get out of reach.

"_Chertovski suka_!" he roared, pulling hard on my arm. My feet went flying out from underneath me and he flung me at the wall of the shack. A scream tore its way out of my throat, choking off into a breathless whimper as I slammed face first back into the wall. The man grabbed my neck and squeezed painfully, his fingernails digging furrows in my flesh. His other hand was already pawing at the back of my pants. He leaned in, close enough that I could feel his breath on my ear. When he spoke, his voice was wet, nasally, and furious. "For that, I will make you hurt."

I started to struggle, barely managing to turn my face away from the decrepit wood, but he just pushed harder. The grip on my neck tightened and I started to choke. Out of the corner of my eye, I could make out the sadistic grin he wore, and the pants already halfway down his thighs as he moved in behind me. Desperately, without stopping to think, my foot shot up and then back down in the strongest kick I could manage. By luck more than skill, my heel slammed into the inside of his knee. The joint gave with a wet pop and he collapsed with a pained, furious scream.

I stumbled back and away from the wall, unbalanced by the abrupt lack of weight behind me, and tripped over the man's injured leg. The impact with the ground drove the breath from my lungs and thought from my head. I lay there stunned for a seeming eternity, unable to do anything but struggle to breathe. Slowly, painfully, my body re-learned the process and the fire in my blood dimmed to merely excruciating, and I remembered the situation. I jumped up and whirled around, trying to find the latest attack.

By the time I turned around, he'd already pulled his gun and was lining up a shot. There was no time to think or plan, only to react. My body moved almost on its own, flinging me into a tackle that planted my full weight right into his stomach, even as I kicked at his injured leg again. He let out a strangled wheeze and the gun tumbled out of his grip, bouncing across the hard packed dirt. Before he could recover, I threw myself after it, my arms pulling against my bonds as hard as I could. I ignored the way the ropes cut into my skin and the sure to be spectacular bruises forming all around them. All that mattered was getting a hand free and getting it on that gun.

I was half a step away from the gun when it finally happened. My left wrist erupted in burning pain but I'd managed to drag it through the tight, coarse rope. Warm, sticky blood flowed freely down my hand, but I ignored it. I already knew what I had to do.

With a shout of triumph, I practically fell onto the gun, rolling over with it in hand just in time for the man to catch up with me. He lunged at me, nearly picking himself off the ground, and time seemed to slow to a crawl. The man hung almost suspended in the air, frozen rage etched into his every feature. For the first time, I could make out the muddy stains in his oversized coat, the gaunt thinness of his face behind the messy beard, and the missing tooth. The gun in my hands swung smoothly around, so slow and so precise I could scarcely believe I was the one doing it. It felt more like I was watching it on TV. Slowly, over the course of eons, the gun made its way all the way around to point at the man.

There was a long eternity of silence.

A deafening boom cracked in the still air and the spell was broken. The gun jerked hard in my hands, tweaking my fingers painfully and nearly twisting out of my grip. A geyser of red erupted out of the new, gaping hole in the man's head, splattering me with a burst of warm, chunky liquid. His ensured he continued toward me, arms flopping bonelessly as he went. I twisted into a roll, just barely managing to slip out from under him before he landed with a wet thud. The man, laying twisted and awkwardly on one side, twitched and gurgled randomly as the life slowly bled from his eyes. I watched, frozen, as blood flowed freely from the crater that had once been the man's forehead. As fear and anger and hate all fell away into a disturbing blankness. As the man became a _thing_.

"Oh God," I whispered. My voice was coarse and thick, slurred by sheer weight of emotion. My throat was tight and it hurt to get the words out. My mind was whirling at a million miles an hour and going nowhere. Relief and triumph and horror and shock and a million other things I couldn't hope to name clashed freely in my head. I didn't know what to think, or even to feel. Nothing made sense anymore. I was lost, left in a dazed sort of detachment, like I was a passenger in my own head. It was like my brain had been wrapped in gauze. And worst of all, I couldn't stop staring at the man as he gurgled and twitched his last.

It took everything I had to force myself to turn away, and suddenly, I was back at my desk, the long, jagged line of ink across my notes the only sign that anything out of the ordinary had happened. Air burned in my throat as I sucked in a shallow gasp. The network of shallow scars all along my left wrist throbbed painfully. My hands trembled from the adrenaline still thrumming in my blood. The white-knuckled grip on my pen was so tight it hurt. What felt like an entire platoon of miniature Stormguard pounded away at the inside of my ribs. The familiar fight-or-flight response sent electric tingles crawling up and down my spine.

At the front of the room, the teacher, a young, clean-shaven man in slacks and a button up, continued to lecture without missing a beat. Harsh, fluorescent light gently clashed with the warm, diffuse sunlight streaming through the windows. A low undercurrent of not-quite-sound filled the room as students scribbled down notes or mostly-silently talked to their friends. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and, with effort, forced my heart to slow down. Slowly, painfully, my muscles started to relax, eventually letting the pen slip through my fingers to land on the open notebook with a gentle thump. I blew out the breath I'd been holding, pushing as much of my tension as I could out with it. When I opened my eyes again, my hands had stopped shaking and I felt almost calm, or at least I'd stopped feeling like I'd kill someone for a sudden movement.

With a barely suppressed sigh at that cheery thought, I picked my pen back up and tried to start paying attention to the lecture again.

"-t Putin was instrumental in the chaos following Behemoth's attack on Moscow," the teacher was saying, gesturing at the giant map of the world he'd hung up on one wall. "In fact, it's widely believed his influence is what kept what's left of Russia from dissolving entirely. I won't bore you with all the details. Let's just say it probably has something to do with his time in the KGB. After things started to settle down-"

I let his droning wash over me, almost absently jotting down notes as he continued to lecture on the current state of Eastern Europe. The action was boring and repetitive, and apparently soporific to most of my peers, but that just made it easier to let habit take over. It was almost relaxing in a way.

Sadly, it couldn't last, and the teacher dismissed the class what felt like only a few minutes later. The room erupted into noise as students all packed up and headed out the door, even while tonight's homework assignment was being shouted over the din. I waited for the room to empty before I slipped out of my seat at the back of the room, sweeping my stuff off my desk and into my bag as I did, and ambled out of the room. It was lunchtime now, or it would be in a couple minutes. I wondered briefly if I'd be able to find a seat in the cafeteria today, but dismissed the question with a shrug. I'd just have to find out.

A minute or so later, I discovered that I did get a seat. I was early enough that no one had taken any of the three tables in the room that would let me keep an eye on both doors and put my back to a wall, which meant I got to eat my lunch at an actual table today. I shook my head as I plopped the paper bag holding my lunch onto it. That still felt a little weird, even six months after getting home. I pulled my sandwich out of the bag and contented myself with looking on the bright side. At least I wasn't still cringing at the thought of eating something I hadn't killed myself.

Even if I did have to prepare it.

The point I reminded myself with a silent growl, is that I am making progress. That was the important thing. That and eating, my stomach chose to remind me insistently. I sighed but obliged it quickly, tearing into my sandwich with the ferocity of a starving man rather than a hyena.

See? Progress.

The sandwich did me good, even if it didn't last very long, and by the time I'd worked through both it and the fruit I'd brought, I was feeling pretty satisfied.

"Christ Hebert," an unfortunately familiar voice said from further down the table. I sighed internally and glanced over, more to let them know they had my attention than any particular need. I'd been watching the whole room the entire time. I'd seen Emma come in, I'd known the moment she decided to lead her groupies to my table, and I'd been ignoring their insults-disguised-as-a-separate-conversation for the last few minutes. "I didn't know you could be any more disgusting."

Emma Barnes was the stereotypical queen bee of high school. Attractive, popular, outgoing, the next best thing to a literal angel in the eyes of anyone in a position of authority, and a colossal bitch to everyone she didn't like. Which, as far as I could tell, was mostly me.

At one point, her taunts and jeers had really bothered me. She and her new friends had made it their mission to torment me as much as they could, all throughout freshman year. Snide comments, spitballs in my hair, stolen bags or books, you name it, they did it. It was rarely physical, the worst I ever had to deal with in that regard was the occasional shove, but in some ways, the verbal abuse was worse. At least the physical abuse left a mark. I'd have been able to do something in that case. As long as Emma and company kept to words though, the teachers had been content to ignore it entirely. Every time I'd tried to get their help, it had been Emma and her friends' word against mine, and mine always turned out to be not enough.

I'm not ashamed to admit it had gotten to me, over time. Enough so that even my dad had picked up on it.

Then he'd introduced me to Mr. Roth, and everything had changed.

"Eh," I replied with a shrug, not at all bothered by her latest salvo. It took a lot more than petty teenage mean-girl bullshit to get to me these days. I did have my pride though. "There's a lot you don't know. Don't worry about it."

Emma said something back, but I'd stopped listening. I turned away, dismissing her from my thoughts entirely, and started rummaging through my backpack. My hand ghosted over my World Studies notes, my Math book, and Mr. Roth's pistol before I finally found what I was looking for. I pulled the small paperback out, cracked it open, and got to reading. Emma kept trying to goad me, I had to give her credit for persistence if nothing else, but I barely noticed it. I had better things to do with my time than indulge her idiocy, especially when I knew that none of them were dumb enough to want to try to get physical again.

Thankfully, it seemed my continued honest disregard had drained the interest out of the rest of them. The conversation at the table slowly turned toward other topics, ranging from things like which of the boys they wanted to have bend them over a table to who had spent the most money on the most useless piece of clothing and various other things I understood even less. Even Emma gave up on me and got pulled into it after a few minutes, when one of her friends, the black one, whatever her name was, started talking to her directly.

I wasn't sure how to feel about that. It was nice that Emma had stopped yapping at me about petty bullshit I really couldn't care less about, but at the same time, sheer proximity meant I was forced to learn far more about Emma's love life than I'd cared to in well over a year. Hell, I was probably learning more about it than I'd have wanted to even if we were still best friends. I thought about just getting up and leaving, but I had a feeling that'd only rekindle Emma's interest in me, and I didn't feel like going through the whole routine again.

In the end, I just rolled my eyes and kept reading. At least they were easier to ignore when they weren't actively trying to annoy me.

When the bell sounded the end of lunch, I slipped the book back into my bag and headed toward my next class. Math, I thought it was. I didn't remember for sure. My feet fell into familiar, if not comfortable, habits and wound up leading me to a classroom. When I recognized the teacher, a kindly-looking man old enough to be my grandfather, and a handful of the students filing into the room with me, I assumed I'd ended up in the right place.

I took my usual seat at the back, sinking into it only a few moments before the second bell rang and class began. The teacher launched straight into the lecture and I slipped back into habit, slowly filling my notebook in time with his speech. One by one, equations I barely understood and couldn't muster the energy to think more about flowed out of my pencil, joined by the occasional doodle as my mind wandered.

I tried to pay attention, I really did, but it was hard. After everything I'd seen and done, all the lives I'd taken, friends I'd lost, and horrors I'd somehow lived through, learning algebra really just didn't seem all that important. Nothing in school did, if I was being honest. I came because my dad wanted me to and I couldn't think of anything else to do with my time, but I couldn't make myself care about it. I was just going through the motions, and I knew it.

The classroom, the other students, hell, even the teacher all just kinda slipped into the background as I went on autopilot. I still took notes and listened to the lecture with half an ear, but it all blended into a dull, unremarkable stretch of routine monotony in my memory. Class bled into class bled into class, until the whole rest of the school day blurred together into an indistinguishable mess. I left the school building and hopped on my bus still wrapped in the haze of monotonous apathy that had become my life.

I sighed under my breath. I really needed to talk to Sam.

-[]-

"Tayluh!" Sam's voice echoed out of my phone the instant she answered my call. She rushed ahead, speaking a mile a minute and, I couldn't help but notice with a smile, trying to talk around what was clearly a mouthful of something. "'s goo' ta hea' fruh ew. I 'as be'nin' ta-"

"Swallow, Sam," I said with a half-laugh at her antics. That was so... Sam. "Then talk."

There was a loud, intentionally I'm sure, gulp, and Sam came back on. "Right, sorry," she said, her tone doing a good job of conveying precisely how sorry she actually was. I snorted indelicately and she tittered briefly. When next she spoke, I could practically hear her pout. "Anyway, it's good to finally hear from you again. I was starting to think you didn't like me anymore."

Sam, or Samantha Nishimura if you like being yelled at, was somewhere between best friend and older sister. We met the day after I came aboard the _Endurance_, right after the trip started. To everyone else, I was just 'that kid Roth had brought along'. Not worth the time to think about, let alone talk to. Sam though? Sam wasn't like that. Despite the fact that I was just a kid and that she had most of a decade on me, she talked to me like an equal. There was never any condescension from her, she never blew me off or tried to foist me onto someone else. She helped me a lot in those early days, with everything from dealing with my first bout of homesickness to chatting about boys. She even let me help with filming the idiot's tacky reality show. I wasn't much more than a glorified tripod, but she made it fun, and that counted for a lot. It had meant a lot to me. Then, when it all went to hell, she saved my life, and when she needed it, I made sure to return the favor.

There isn't a person alive I can trust like Sam, and I like to think the feeling's mutual.

"It's been three days, Sam," I said in my best deadpan. I knew her too well to rise to the bait.

"My point stands," she shot back, finality in her tone. "Anyway, whatcha need?"

"Nothing," I said, careful to keep any sign of the rut I'd been in out of my voice. "I just wanted to talk. How're you enjoying the city that never sleeps?"

"Boring!" She drew the word out over several seconds. "I told Dad I'd handle this trip because it's New York, y'know? But all I do all day is attend meetings, and by the time the meetings are done, I'm too wiped out to properly celebrate. It sucks. And don't even get me started on the meetings themselves."

I made a noncommittal, vaguely inquiring sound and that was all the encouragement Sam needed. I was treated to a blistering twenty minute rant on the shortcomings of the, and I quote, 'idiotic, backwards-thinking, demented, malformed, and misogynistic baboons' that she had spent the last two days in near-constant contact with.

By the time she was done, I was nearly howling with laughter.

"And then, and then the herpes wart has to gall to suggest that Dad had only sent me so the meetings would have a 'happy ending'!" Sam nearly growled into the phone. Part of me was outraged at the implication, but I'd taught Sam enough on the trip back to the US that I was sure she could handle herself against a grabby businessman, and I was having way too much fun listen to her continuing to insult the man without yet repeating herself.

"He didn't!" I gasped theatrically.

"Yes, the fink-faced pile of toejam did."

"What'd you do?"

"I borrowed a page from your book," she said matter of factly, and I suddenly felt a bit of worry break through my amusement. There was a very real chance she was about to ask me how to hide a body.

"Sam... what did you do?"

"Oh relax would you?" Sam's voice was airy and unconcerned. "You remember that reporter that jumped us a few months back?"

"Yeah," I confirmed. I remembered that reporter alright. Shortly after we'd gotten back, when us and Yamatai and everything was still big news, Sam had been visiting and we had been heading home from lunch when someone had practically jumped out from behind a bush and shoved a microphone in my face. I had barely managed to stop myself before I drove my new knife through his chin, not that he noticed. He was too busy demanding answers. Once I'd mastered my initial reaction and was sure I wasn't about to kill him, I'd proceeded to level my best glare at him.

It hadn't taken more than a few seconds for him to run off shouting apologies.

"It went kinda like that."

"Really?" I asked, raising an eyebrow in spite of myself. Maybe my perspective was skewed, but while I love her dearly, intimidating was not something I'd ever associate with Sam.

"Yes," Sam answered firmly at first, but soon trailed off into a more uncertain tone. "Well, it probably helped when Hirohito threatened to cancel the deal entirely if he kept being such a, a... kumquat!"

I chuckled, but I couldn't resist responding to that one. "I don't think 'kumquat' is an insult, Sam."

"Then it should be," she said petulantly. I heard some rustling that sounded like she was shaking her head. "Anyway, enough about me. What's up in the Bay?"

"Same old story," I said, unable to keep all of the bitterness out of my voice. "School, homework, the usual. Nothing special."

There was a long pause before Sam responded, and when she did, her voice was serious, completely absent its usual playful teasing. "Taylor, I know you don't want to hear this, but I really think you should think about meeting with Dr. Stein again."

"You're right, I don't want to hear it," I snapped back, more angrily than I'd intended. I shook my head and pushed the flash of irritation down. "Sorry. It's just, I've already tried the whole therapy thing, and it only made things worse. I really don't want to deal with that again."

"I know sweetie," Sam said. "But I'm worried about you." She paused briefly before continuing. "You don't have to go, but at least think about it, alright? For me?"

"I'm _fine_, Sam," I insisted. "There's nothing wrong. But since it bothers you so much, I'll let you know that I'm still keeping up with the one thing he recommended that actually made sense."

"Oh? You're heading back out to the woods?" Sam asked, latching onto the new topic immediately. She sounded relieved for the switch.

"Yeah. I'm heading out tomorrow and should be back Monday morning. I'll see if I can find a campsite with a cell signal and give you a call when I get set up, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you."

"Sounds great, but does Danny know of these plans?"

"Yeah," I said, drawing the word out and adding a questioning lilt to the end. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"Is he coming with you?"

"Nope. It's gonna be just me."

"Why not?"

"Because he doesn't want to?" I asked more than said. It was a true statement though. The last time he'd come with me, he'd barely been able to pull his own weight, and he'd seemed to genuinely hate it. I hadn't seen any reason to drag him out with me since. I'd told Sam all of this before of course, which just made her current line of questions all the more confusing.

"Have you asked him?"

"No, bu-"

"Go ask him." She cut me off sharply, her tone firm. "I'll give you the therapist, even if I do think you need it, but I'm drawing a line here. Bring him along when you leave tomorrow."

"Wha? But he doesn't even like camping!" I said. "Not to mention he's terrible at it. Why would I bother him with it?"

"Look, Taylor, you need to spend more time with your dad, and your dad needs to spend more time with you. I'm sure he'd be eager for the chance." My mouth opened and I started to say something, to object or deny or agree, I wasn't sure, but Sam barrelled ahead before I could. "At least ask him, alright? If he says no, then forget I said anything, but at least give him the choice. That's all I ask."

I was silent for several seconds, trying to decide if bothering Dad was worth shutting Sam up, before I sighed heavily.

"Alright, you win," I said, pointedly ignoring the muffled 'yes!' I could hear over the phone. "I'll ask him. But when he says no, I'm not going to force him to come with me."

"Awesome. Have fun with Danny tomorrow."

I sighed. It wasn't worth fighting over. "Yeah sure. Talk to you later, Sam."

"Bye Taylor, call me when you get back into town."

"I will," I promised and hung up.


	2. Becalmed: Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The winter chill of the woods outside Brockton Bay was invasive. My nose was red and raw from the cold, and running freely. Crisp, clear January air burned my throat and lungs with every breath. I'd lost most of the feeling in my ears, and the steady thump of my heart nearly drowned out all other sound. Icy fingers traced strange patterns deep inside my bones. It was an active effort to keep from shivering. My glove-clad hands had lost most of their fine control, leaving me feeling clumsy and weak. My legs were stiff and unresponsive, refusing to bend without a direct order. It was absolutely miserable.

And I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

The familiar weight of the bow in my hands helped steady them. Chilled plastic warmed slowly in my grip, giving my fingers something to focus on. A full quiver of arrows bounced comfortingly against my back with every step. The climbing axe strapped to my thigh was a solid counterpoint to the random and flighty bite of the wind. Trees of nearly every variety towered over me in every direction. Some were lifeless, void of leaf and color, while others endured, the riot of brilliant green needles standing stark contrast to their skeletal neighbors. Beneath my feet, dirt and detritus turned into sloppy mud around and under the occasional piles of light snow.

I was back in my element. It was comforting, like a favorite shirt put on straight from the dryer.

There were no people out here. No expectations or pressures. No aimless drifting. No constant feeling of subtle wrongness. Things were... simpler. It was just me and my thoughts. I could finally unwind a little. Out in the wilds, things made so much more sense. If I was tired, I could sleep. If I was hungry, I could hunt. I didn't have to worry about it. I barely had to think about it. It was so much easier than being 'normal', than constantly trying to be someone I could barely remember. It was freeing, in a way, and I didn't doubt that I'd have lost it already without my little weekend expeditions.

I luxuriated in the feeling, easily able to ignore the cold in comparison, and kept stalking through the trees. I'd been on the trail of a deer for the last hour, and I knew I was getting close. The signs of its passage were becoming steadily fresher. I stopped at the latest one, a trio of hoofprints left in the mud, and crouched down for a closer look. The impression was still damp, the edges still mostly sharp and defined. Gravity hadn't had time to curl the edges and pull the water out of the rises, so it had to be pretty fresh. I was ten, maybe fifteen minutes behind the deer, I estimated, and judging by the size of the print, it should be big enough for both Dad and I to eat our fill tonight.

Assuming Dad had the fire up and running yet.

I smiled wryly at that thought and started to stand up, only to freeze as my eyes settled on another print in the mud only a few feet away. It was a little older than the deer's tracks, softer and less defined, but I knew what it was all the same. I'd seen enough on Yamatai to be unable to mistake it. I was looking at a wolf print.

I shuffled over to the print, assessing it as best I could, and quickly picked up on the signs of the wolf's trail. The mud made it fairly easy. The thick swath of mostly-smoothed mud, a sure sign of something being dragged, that accompanied the pawprints made it even easier. There wasn't nearly enough mud on the ground for a definitive trail the whole way, but the carpet of needles and foam kicked up by the wolf's cargo more than made up for it. I was able to follow it with my eyes a good distance, until it was swallowed by the wilderness. It led further up the mountain, directly toward the cliff face I could see poking out of the trees.

Straightening up, I pulled an arrow from my quiver, nocked it on my bow, and followed the trail. My steps were light and cautious, but steady. Tension thrummed in my muscles as I tried to be ready for anything. My senses were primed to the best of my ability, focused on everything around me. I'd fought off wolves before, I knew how vicious and sneaky they could be, and I'd seen what they could do to a full grown man. The last thing I wanted was to be on the receiving end.

The trail led me on a surprisingly straight path through the woods, and even more surprisingly, I managed to follow it without incident, all the way to the cliff face I'd seen and the small clearing immediately around it. It was a tight area of abruptly clear space, almost the size of a city block, and most of it was taken up by ramshackle huts that had been left to rot a long time ago.

Behind the huts, the cliff towered, running as far as I could see through the trees in either direction. Now that I was close though, it became clear that the cliff wasn't really a cliff at all. It was a series of separate cliffs one after the other. Crumbling sheets of stone had burst out of the mountain in uneven layers, creating an enormous, jagged stone staircase rising a total of seven or eight stories into the air. A couple of shacks stood on the larger steps, in a similar state of disrepair as the others. A small, swiftly flowing river cut through the circle of ancient shacks, fed constantly by the waterfall that cascaded down from the top of the cliffs. The constant dull roar of the waterfall was a stark contrast to the ghost town vibe of the abandoned shacks.

I followed the wolf's trail into the heart of the ring of shacks, part of me hoping I wasn't gonna have to go into one. I already had too many bad memories involving old and broken buildings. Thankfully, I didn't. The wolf's trail led straight through the circle of huts, taking me right past the waterfall, before it vanished into the underbrush at the base of the first tier of cliffs. Chill spray from the waterfall dotted my face and soaked into my shirt as I walked along the river's edge and I sighed in relief. The hike up the mountain had worked up a real sweat and the cool water was refreshing. I took a moment to relish the sensation but soon shook myself back to the task at hand. I had to catch up with that wolf.

Unfortunately, as I discovered upon reaching the brush into which the trail had vanished, the wolf had pre-empted me. The trail led into the bushes and straight into a gap in the cliff barely a foot across, and full of so many brambles and thorns I knew I'd be flayed if I tried to follow. It was a narrow mess of infections and death just waiting to happen. And to make it all worse, I could see the way it formed a steep incline that, while it didn't get any gentler, led directly to the top of the first step, and the broken brambles and scuffed dirt that meant the wolf had already climbed it.

At that point, I put my weeks spent hanging around sailors to good use and turned the air blue. This was exactly what I didn't need. Still, there was more than one way to scale a cliff, and I wasn't about to let a few plants beat me. Not after everything I'd been through. I backed away from the gap, sliding my bow over my shoulder as I went, and started looking for my own way up.

I found it almost immediately.

On on the far side of the waterfall from the gap, the stone making up the first tier of cliffs was pitted and cracked. Thin sheets of lichen sprung from small gaps in the rock, widening them and softening the stone. I'd need to use the axe strapped to my thigh, but I could definitely see a route up to the top. If I could climb it.

I shook that thought off. I didn't have the option of failure.

A running jump carried me across the narrowest part of the river, where I barely managed to stop myself from face planting in the loam. I climbed back to my feet, pulled the axe from its holder, and approached the stretch of chipped and softened stone. I plotted out my route as I walked, my eyes darting from hold to potential hold all the way up. By the time I reached the base, I'd settled on a plan. The axe was a steady, reassuring weight in my grip as I swung my left foot up onto the first foothold and paused, taking a deep breath.

"Here goes nothing," I muttered and pushed off the first foothold, lifting myself a few inches off the ground. My free hand snagged a ledge, steadying my balance on the thin shelf on which I stood. My other hand lashed out with the axe in a short chop, driving the point into the rock. The stone gave with a soft crack and a brief shower of dust and pebbles rained down around me. The axe had lodged though, and that was all I needed.

I gave it a sharp tug to be sure it would hold, let out a relieved breath when its hold didn't so much as twitch, and started to climb. I moved from handhold to handhold, foothold to foothold, and carved them out of the soft, flaky rock whenever there wasn't one in reach. My muscles started burning within seconds. Sweat poured down my body, a warm and salty contrast to the icy chill of the waterfall's spray that still reached me. My breath came only in shallow, painful gasps. Sharp edges of stone pressed against my hand at almost every hold. I had to fight for my worn boots to get purchase on the rock. It was agony.

But it worked. Slowly, inch by painstaking inch, I hauled myself up the cliff.

What felt like hours later, but couldn't have been more than a few minutes, I scrambled over the ledge and onto the first tier proper. I stayed there, laying on the rough rock and just breathing for several long seconds before I worked up the energy to crawl the few feet over to the next cliff face and sit down with my back against it, panting like a bellows. Sweat-slicked cloth clung to my neck and chest, and it was starting to chafe, but I couldn't muster the energy to do anything about it. My hands and thighs trembled softly in the sudden absence of strain, feeling more like stretched rubber bands than actual limbs. Everything hurt, dully throbbing in time with the beat of my heart.

I sat there for several minutes, slowly feeling strength trickle back into my limbs. If I never had to do that again, it would be too soon.

Once I was confident I'd at least mostly recovered, I pushed off the wall behind me and climbed to my feet. My legs protested the act at first, but as I started walking, it faded to a barely perceptible ache. I pushed the sensation to the back of my mind and made my way along the clifftop back toward where I knew the wolf had come up, intent on picking up the trail once more.

Luckily, I didn't need to go far. Before I'd even made it to the waterfall, signs of the wolf's passage appeared in the dirt at the base of the next cliff. Short, shallow furrows of overturned loose dirt turned up every few feet, and I thought I could see signs of something having swept along the rock in places. Together, it couldn't have been anything but the trail, and it came out from under the overhang that carried the waterfall over this tier before winding along the clifftop back toward where I had come up and on into the distance past it.

The tracks hugged the wall for a few hundred feet, all the way to the end of the current tier. The cliff I was walking along swept up and back, toward the top of the mountain, forming a jagged and uneven ramp up to the next level. Relief thrummed through me at the knowledge I wouldn't have to do another vertical climb. I clambered up the ramp, found the trail again, and set off after it.

The next half hour or so proceeded in much the same way. I swept back and forth across each level of the cliffs, up and down and sideways so many times my head spun. Sometimes I inched along on less than a foot of solid ground. Others, I was able to walk through open ground big enough to build a house on. Still more were somewhere in between. I ignored it. All that mattered was catching up with the wolf. Everything else could wait.

Eventually, about two thirds of the way up the series of cliffs, and almost directly above the circle of huts where the climb started, I came to the end. A small cave, barely more than half my height, gaped open at the base of the next cliff up, and the tracks led straight into it, vanishing into the pitch black depths. The late-afternoon sun was at almost exactly the wrong angle to help, casting the opening deep in the shadow of the cliff that hosted it. I couldn't see more than a few inches into the cave.

Nervous fear sent goosebumps along my flesh. My knees felt weak. Cold shivers wracked my body. I really didn't want to go in there.

I didn't have a choice. I had to get that pack back.

The axe was in my grip before I'd even noticed I'd moved, the rough cloth of its grip strangely comforting. I held it in front of me, ready to swing at a moment's notice, as I approached the cave. Nothing had jumped out of it by the time I reached the entrance though. I crouched down just outside the entrance and swept the axe through the darkness. Nothing happened.

With one last glance back toward the sun, I took a deep breath, braced myself for whatever was about to happen, and plunged inside.

Darkness swept over me like a living thing. Sight vanished. My entire world shrank down to only a handful of inches around me. I couldn't see the floor, the roof, even the hand I had keeping me balanced in the crouch I'd been forced to take. The only way I had to mark my position was the rough stone lightly scraping against my back and the dirt beneath my hand. The temperature dropped by at least ten degrees, a fact that was all too clear to me and my sweat-slicked shirt. I couldn't suppress the shivers that started racing up and down my back. I ignored it as best I could and crept forward cautiously, eyes straining futilely against the omnipresent blackness.

Abruptly, the looming presence of the roof vanished from over my back, and I immediately took the opportunity to straighten. I went cautiously, just in case, but I needn't have bothered. The cave was now more than tall enough for me to stand fully upright, but still just as dark.

The second I got upright, I started moving once more, my free hand held out in front to keep me from running into anything. I inched my way slowly through the darkness, ears peeled for the slightest sound, for what felt like days.

Finally, my groping hand landed on a wall, mere moments before a splash of color flashed in the corner of my eye. I yelped in surprise, whirling toward my right with axe raised, but found nothing but darkness. I waited a beat, the only sound the ragged rhythm of my own breathing, and when nothing happened, slowly started to relax.

Then a deep, red light shone out of the darkness. I tensed again, waiting for something, but the light vanished a second later. There was a long moment of silence, adrenaline loudly pumping in my blood, until the light came back. Then it vanished again, and came back, and I realized what was going on. Something man-made was blinking from further inside the cave. The light came in too-regular intervals for anything else.

That was probably exactly what I was looking for.

I heaved a sigh of relief and started moving toward the light. The cave narrowed as I got closer, but I still fit easily enough, all the way to the back. I had to round another corner at the end, but when I did, I emerged into a small, barren chamber, ten, maybe fifteen, feet across, with a small mess of old, cracked bones and dried blood covering the floor. A savaged backpack lay torn open to one side, its contents scattered all over the room. The source of the light was a small box that looked like a cross between a walkie-talkie and one of the original cell phones. A bright red LED on its top was blinking incessantly, flaring bright enough to illuminate the whole room for a brief second before plunging it back into darkness for just as long.

I ignored the box at first and hurried over to the pack. I started digging through it, throwing its contents aside in my search. My hands landed on the first aid kit in no time flat and I pulled it out with a shout of triumph. Finally, things were finally starting to look up. I stood up, first aid kit in hand, and scooped up the radio before tying it mostly-securely to my belt. The light flickered on and I turned to leave.

My blood went suddenly turned to ice.

Gleaming, blood-red eyes glared out of the shadows at the entrance of the chamber. Fangs bigger than most of the knives I'd seen formed a macabre, bloody grin across a muzzle darker than the deepest void. A low, furious rumble filled the still air of the cave. The faint stink of rot that hung in the air abruptly got an order of magnitude stronger. Cold sweat ran down my skin in icy rivers.

I couldn't help it. I froze, wide-eyed and terrified. Some primitive, primal part of me knew, intuitively understood, that I was about to die.

The wolf moved.

The light turned off.

I screamed, wildly flailing with my axe, and what felt like a truck plowed into my chest. I fell heavily onto my back, a loud snap announcing at least a couple of my arrows shattering. Sharp claws dug furrows into the flesh of my right shoulder and the bone shrieked in protest of the sudden weight driving the joint into the ground. On instinct, my hands flew up to cover my face and the axe caught on something.

The light turned on.

The wolf stood over me, one foot planted firmly on my shoulder, and the handle of the axe caught firmly between its teeth. The wolf growled and shook its head violently, twisting the axe right out of my grip. Almost completely out of my mind with panic, I did the only thing I could think of. Both my hands flew at its neck as hard as I could manage, driving my fingers into its jaw and throat. The wolf jerked back, dropping the axe in the process, but recovered in moments. It lunged back for my face and I barely managed to brace my arms in time.

The light turned off.

Claws dug deep into my shoulder as the wolf whirled and thrashed in my grip. I could feel the wind of its teeth closing less than an inch from my face. The fetid stink of its breath filled my nose. Adrenaline sang in my blood. My heart thundered in my ears. Raw animal panic had driven rational thought from my mind, all that was left was the desperate desire to live. But my arms were getting tired. I could feel them giving a little bit more with every lunge the wolf made.

The light turned on, and my arms gave out.

The wolf threw itself at my face in one last terrifying lunge. Running purely on some strange combination of adrenaline and instinct, I twisted to the right at the last moment, kicking at the wolf's rear legs and slapping as hard as I could at the leg on my shoulder at the same time. The wolf's claws dug a bloody furrow across the top of my chest and shirt, but the move managed to spin the wolf just enough that its teeth missed my nose by a hair.

The full weight of the wolf landed on my stomach, driving the breath out of me in a rush, but I was running on pure adrenaline by then and wasn't about to be stopped. The wolf was on its side on top of me, so I continued my slide out from under it and immediately threw myself on its back with a weak, breathless roar.

The light turned off.

The wolf went insane. Furious growls and rabid barks filled the small chamber as the wolf started thrashing in my arms. It twisted and clawed and bit at anything and everything, but it was still laying on its stomach and I'd managed to get an arm around its throat and a foot on either side, pinning it in place. Its teeth slammed together over and over again only an inch or two from my ear, but I ignored it. My free hand reached into the quiver on my back and pulled out an arrow.

The light turned on, and the wolf's teeth found my ear.

Pain washed through me and on pure instinct, I flung myself away from the wolf with a cry. Warm blood flowed down the side of my head. Both hands moved to cradle the wound. The wolf barrelled into me like a speeding train, tackling me to the ground once more. Blood-crazed fury shone in its eyes as it snapped its jaws toward my throat.

Only for an arrow to suddenly sprout from its eye.

The wolf died instantly. It collapsed onto my chest in a heap, its weight snapping the shaft of the arrow I still clutched in one hand.

The light turned off.

I rocked back on my heels, feeling like I'd just been punched. The rough scar that was all that was left of my left earlobe pulsed angrily. The bow in my hand groaned gently in response to the white-knuckled grip I'd put it in. Icy fingers reached through the thin, fearful sweat that dotted my skin under the warm layers I'd wrapped around it. Snow and mud squelched noisily beneath my boots. The familiar scent of a forest in winter filled my nose. Wind whistled through the trees all around me. I let out the breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

I glanced down once more, taking in the canine footprint cleanly outlined in the mud.

Then I straightened up, swinging my bow over my shoulder in the process, and turned back toward camp.

-[]-

When I got back to camp, I was more surprised than I probably should have been to find a good sized fire blazing in the center of the clearing. My dad was sitting a few feet away from it with his back to me, humming quietly to himself. A small pile of spare firewood lay next to him. On the opposite side, the bedrolls we'd brought had been laid out head-to-head near the fire. Dangerously near, actually. I made a mental note to fix that.

"Hey Dad," I called, walking up beside him. "I'm back."

Dad jumped in surprise, sending a few pieces of firewood tumbling out of the stack, but he recovered quickly. He was on his feet a second later and facing me with a small, proud smile.

My dad had never been what one would call attractive, something I'd inherited. He was beanpole thin, with a weak chin and thin, dark hair that was clearly losing the battle against encroaching baldness. His eyes dominated his face, especially when magnified by his glasses, and it gave him a constantly bewildered look. The thick blue jacket he wore, despite fitting him nearly perfectly, looked oversized and baggy, like a kid trying on some of their parents' old clothes. Together with his general demeanor, it gave him an air of naive harmlessness.

"Hey," he said, pride evident in his voice. "Welcome back. I got the fire going."

"I noticed." My reply was a little drier than I'd meant. There was a brief moment of awkward silence until I abruptly thrust out the corpse of the rabbit I was carrying. "It'll come in handy. Do you want to take care of this?"

"It, uh, it's my turn, isn't it?" he asked more than said. I nodded. He looked a little green, but he didn't let that stop him from taking the rabbit. "I, uh, I might need some, uh..."

"Just let me know if you want help," I told him as I pulled my knife out of its sheath. I flipped it around and caught the blade by the tip and held out the handle to him. He took it reluctantly and started to turn away. A hand on his shoulder stopped him and he gave me an inquisitive look. "Make sure you do it outside camp and over a pit so you can bury the guts when you're done. I think there's wolves in the area."

"Oka-, wolves?!" Dad's shocked yelp echoed off the trees surrounding the clearing. His eyes were wide with surprise and no small amount of fear. The rabbit hit the dirt with a soft thump. His head started whipping around looking every which way, as if he expected a wolf to come charging out of the trees at any moment.

"Yes, wolves," I confirmed calmly, hoping to get him to relax. Casually, I bent down and picked up the rabbit again. "I spotted some tracks while out hunting, two, maybe three miles that way." I gestured into the trees behind me. Then I hoisted the rabbit in front of him. "That's why I have this instead of a deer. I spotted it while on my way back here to let you know."

"Taylor, wolves are dangerous," he said, tight worry in his voice. He still hadn't stopped whipping his head around, but at least the immediate fear was fading from his voice.

"Yes, they are." The scars on my chest and ear throbbed once. I ignored it.

"If they're nearby, we should leave."

"Bad idea. We've got half an hour of sun left, maybe less. We wouldn't even make it halfway out before dark, and that would make us easy prey." I shook my head. "The smart thing is to stay here. Wolves don't like fire, so they'll stay away. As long as we keep the fire going and don't give them any reason to come for us, we'll be fine."

"That does not sound like a good idea," he admitted, eying me uncertainly. "Are you, are you sure?"

"Yes." I met his gaze calmly and silently willed him to trust me. "We should probably take turns on watch tonight, just in case, but I don't think it'll be necessary." My free hand reached out and gently took the knife from him. "And just to make sure, let me take care of this."

He was silent for a long second, then he blew out a noisy breath and let his shoulders sag. "Alright," he sighed and let me take the knife.

I frowned at that. Did he want to be the one to handle gutting the rabbit that badly? I'd have thought he'd have been happy to not have to deal with it. I shook my head. Maybe he just needed something to do to get his mind off of the wolves.

"While I'm doing this, can you move the bedrolls back a bit?" I asked. "They're a little too close to the fire."

There was a short pause before he responded, his voice soft and sad. "Oh. Yeah, I got it."

My frown deepened. I had the uncomfortable sense that I'd just done something wrong, but I had no idea what.

Awkward, heavy silence settled over the campsite for the rest of the evening.


	3. Becalmed: Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"Thank god that's over," I muttered under my breath as I walked out the front doors of Winslow High. Despite my best efforts, the tension that had steadily settled into my shoulders and neck refused to relax. A steady stream of people filled the street in both directions, heading off to do whatever they did after school let out, and I caught myself absently noting which ones would have to die first when the crowd turned and rushed me.

An exhausted sigh slipped out of my throat and I forcibly derailed that train of thought.

The last few days had been hell. Between the teachers' incessant droning and my own complete inability to focus, school had been dragging on even worse than usual. I was mentally drained before the end of the third class every day. Add on to that the lingering awkwardness between me and my dad, and I felt like I was going to go insane. It had barely been three days since I'd gotten back from my last trip out to the woods and I already needed another one.

It was getting to be too much. I really needed someone to talk to, and thankfully I had just the thing. Hopefully.

A flick of my wrist pulled out my cell and I tapped out a number from memory. The ringtone started chirping in my ear as I stepped out of the doorway and leaned back against the wall beside it, where I was out of the way and able to keep an eye on the whole street. My phone repeated the ring three times before it was answered. Slow relief blossomed in my chest. Thank god. That meant she wasn't on duty.

"Hannah speaking," a smooth woman's voice, touched by the faintest hint of an accent I'd never been able to place, greeted me in a clipped, businesslike tone.

"Hey Hannah," I said, forcing the tiredness out of my voice through sheer force of will. My eyes automatically started tracking a group of thugs in predominantly red and green, the colors of the Azn Bad Boyz, a local pan-Asian gang more commonly called the ABB, as they came out the door. They walked right past me, chatting idly, so I just made note of them and moved on.

"Hello Taylor." Her voice was much more friendly when she responded. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine." I shrugged despite knowing she couldn't see it. I tensed when I caught a flash of silver in the hands of one of the ABB members, but relaxed in the same heartbeat. It was only the idiot's cell phone. "Same as always. You?"

"I can't complain," she said. There was a hint of amusement in her tone. "There was a debacle the other day I'm still sorting out the paperwork for, but having the story behind it more than makes up for it."

That piqued my interest. "Oh?"

"Later," she said hurriedly. "It's a little too convoluted to share over the phone."

"Fair enough," I conceded. "In that case, are you doing anything right now?"

"Nothing that can't wait. Did you want to meet up?"

"That would be cool." I paused a moment in thought, trying to figure out a good meeting place for the time. "You up for a snack at that cafe off the Boardwalk?"

"I think I am," she agreed. "Meet there in half an hour?"

I ran quickly through the bus schedule and where the stops I needed were before nodding to myself. "That should work. See you there."

"Bye Taylor," she said and hung up.

A flick of my wrist had my phone stashed back in my pocket at the same moment a flex of my shoulders pushed me off the wall. My eyes swept over the crowd again. I absently noted the group of ABB thugs heading across the street, as well as the other dozen or so pockets of probable gang members that were slowly dispersing as well. None of them were paying me any attention though, so I shrugged and stepped into the the flow of bodies. The crowd of teenagers pressed in around me, a living tide of countless meaningless conversations and colorful clothes that slowly thinned as I got farther and farther from the school. Soon enough, it was only a small handful of students, none of which I recognized, and me at the bus stop.

It didn't take the bus long to arrive, and within a few minutes I was standing in the aisle holding the ceiling rail as it chugged along. The inside of the bus stank of burning diesel and stale urine, but I ignored it, just like the other eleven passengers. A low, even murmur of several conversations, just barely audible over the rumble of the engine, reached my ears. I watched the passengers out of one eye and tracked the bus' progress with the other, but none of the passengers so much as gave me a second look. The ride went by completely without incident.

I was almost used to that.

The bus dropped me off right on the edge of the Boardwalk, the overpriced tourist trap that was the only reason any outsiders still came to Brockton Bay. Garish, eye-catching storefronts lined the far side of the street to my left, while the wooden floor of the boardwalk proper stretched out over the beach and into the bay on my right. Brightly lit carnival-esque booths dotted the boardwalk in uneven rows, containing shops, games, and even a handful of small carnival rides, though I couldn't remember ever seeing any of the rides actually operating. Several tourists, obvious from their eager looks and way-too-expensive clothes, dotted the street in small groups. The grim, suited forms of the Boardwalk's enforcers could be seen lurking in the background, just waiting for an excuse to haul a stupid thief into the nearest alley and 'enforce' the rules of the Boardwalk.

As an obvious local and, worse, someone who obviously didn't have the kind of money to actually shop out here, I got more than my fair share of interest from the thinly-disguised thugs. Hostile, evaluating stares followed me the entire time I was out on the street. It made my trigger finger itch, and I had to fight the urge to duck behind cover every time I passed something that would do the job.

The enforcers left it at wary looks though, and I was able to keep my instinctive reactions under control until I turned off onto one of the side streets. I followed the road down a couple of blocks to a small cafe. A bell rang as I opened the door and stepped inside. It was a cozy place, barely larger than the living room of my house, with a glass display case and coffee machinery taking up almost a full third of that. Five round, two-to-four person tables were scattered around the remaining space at seeming random, and enough chairs were sitting around that it was nearly impossible to walk through the place without having to move at least one.

The cafe was empty when I walked in, aside from the thin, older asian woman standing behind the register. I ordered a cup of tea from her, paid, and brought the cup over to one of the tables. I'd barely sat down when the bell over the door chimed again and Hannah came strolling in.

Hannah was a fit older woman somewhere in her early 30s. She was olive-skinned, with a slender but clearly powerful build and a figure I'd gladly kill for. Her long, dark hair was styled the same way it always was; rolled up into a bun and held in place by a large, dark green knitting needle. Today, she was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of baggy sweatpants, but she moved with a smooth, almost predatory grace that made it seem like a suit of armor.

Which only made sense. Hannah was a member of the Parahuman Response Team, or PRT, the government agency responsible for dealing with parahuman criminals. She'd never said for sure, but based on her stories, I was pretty confident she was one of their field agents. We first met back in October, when she heard about Yamatai and decided to find me and make sure I knew I could talk to her. I'd been confused about why at first, but she'd eventually explained enough of her past for me to get it. She was born a Kurd in Turkey at a time when that was a very bad thing. I still didn't know much of the details, and I wasn't about to ask, but from what I did know, it was pretty obvious she'd ended up as a child soldier. I wasn't entirely sure how relevant that was to my 'adventure' on Yamatai, but she at least understood some of what I was dealing with. It wasn't perfect, but her efforts meant a lot to me.

Her dark eyes swept around the small shop and landed on me. I lifted my cup of tea in salute and Hannah flashed a small smile. She ordered something from the woman at the register and promptly sat down on the far side of my table, setting down a cup and a flaky pastry of some kind in front of her. The strong aroma of Turkish coffee filled my nose and I scowled at her.

"How the hell do you drink that stuff?"

"Practice," she said with a smile that bordered on a smirk. She took a slow, deliberate sip of the coffee and sighed contentedly. "Lots of practice."

"Whatever you say," I drawled with a shake of my head. I gave the coffee one last disgusted look and moved on. "You mentioned paperwork and a story earlier. What's going on there?"

Hannah's lips quivered, alternating between a scowl and a smirk so quickly that I couldn't tell what expression she was trying to make. She clearly found the story hilarious, and just as clearly thought she shouldn't. I leaned forward eagerly. I just knew this was going to be good. Her mouth opened, but she paused and her jaws closed with a final thud.

"No," she said with a shake of her head. She gave me a semi-apologetic glance. "Sorry, but I shouldn't. Can't," she quickly corrected herself. Her lips twitched into a half-smile, half-grimace. "It's not something I should spread."

"Aww c'mon," I groaned. She'd gotten my hopes up too. I put my hands together and did my best to look pathetic. I wanted to hear that story, damnit. "You can tell me, I won't tell anyone."

She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye and her lips twitched upward. "You don't pout very well."

"I figured," I said with a sigh. I let my face relax into a more normal expression. "So you're not gonna tell me after I came all the way out here?"

She paused, obviously torn on it. Her shoulders slumped and she blew out a heavy breath. "Fine," she relented. "But you're gonna promise not to tell anyone, alright?"

"Promise," I agreed immediately, a smile already rising to my lips. "If anyone finds out, it won't be from me."

She eyed me for a second or two, probably trying to judge my sincerity, before, after a shake of her head and a mutter under her breath, launching into her story.

"We had another run-in with Uber and Leet being, well, Uber and Leet," she told me. "We got a call a few days ago about their latest scheme and Armsmaster was dispatched to put a stop to it. When he got there, it turned out that they'd been the ones to call it in. They needed a hero to play the role of Pac-Man."

"Pac-Man?" I asked dryly. I didn't doubt her word, Uber and Leet were notoriously C-list villains whose whole schtick was video game themed crimes they filmed and published online. They were barely competent enough to notice, and no one took them seriously.

"Yes, Pac-Man," Hannah confirmed evenly. "When Armsmaster went into the warehouse they were occupying, he found out the whole place had been turned into a gigantic maze, and the door had locked behind him. He was forced to run through the maze and break the holographic orbs that filled it while fighting off a self-repairing 'ghost' robot the whole time."

I cocked an eyebrow at Hannah. After all the effort she'd made me go through to get this story, I was a little disappointed with it. "That isn't nearly as entertaining as you made it sound."

She shook her head. Once more, her lips started flickering between a grin and a scowl. "There's more to the story."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean the orbs Armsmaster was breaking weren't entirely holographic," she said. Her expression turned into an exaggerated scowl that was probably supposed to disguise the grin that was trying to fight its way out. I suddenly had the feeling this was going to end badly for the hero. "It turns out they'd been one of Leet's rare successful inventions. Every one he broke gave Armsmaster a mild dose of an unknown compound, probably another of Leet's inventions. It's harmless in the long-term, as far as we've been able to tell, but it's a powerful short-term hallucinogen. Miss Militia, my team, and I arrived twenty minutes after he called for backup, and we found him in an empty maze, on one knee and professing his undying love to his halberd."

"What." I couldn't believe what I'd heard. I heard the words and understood them, but putting them together in that order didn't make any sense. It was so outlandish, so ridiculous to imagine the man in that situation that I couldn't do it.

"That's how it happened," Jonah insisted. The fire cast dancing shadows across his massive frame. His tattoos seemed to crawl across his bare arms in the flickering orange light. The big Samoan gave me a wide smile and made a sweeping gesture with the skewer holding one of the chunks of deer he was cooking. His shoulders shook with barely-repressed laughter. "Th- the next morning, the old man came tearing out of his bunk in n-nothing but his underwear, swearing vengeance on all of us."

Sam finally lost the fight against her laughter and collapsed against me, guffawing directly into my ear. I flinched from the sound at first, but didn't let myself move too far. It felt good to hear an honest laugh after everything I'd been through the last few days.

"And he damn near did it too," Reyes said. Her smile was faint, distant, and sad. "Roth barely managed to talk him down." She shook her head. "I do not want to know what he had planned. That old man could get mean."

"That he could," Jonah said fondly. "He was a fighter, Grim was."

"Yeah," I muttered distractedly, hugging my knees tighter. I couldn't muster up anywhere near the cheer the others did. I didn't know him nearly as well as they did. I didn't have the fond memories. All I could see was the moment the old Scotsman had thrown himself and the cultists who held him hostage off that cliff. For me.

"Hey, cheer up," Sam whispered softly into my ear. The arm she put around my shoulders squeezed gently. "It wasn't your fault. He went out swinging, like he always wanted. He wouldn't want you to be all depressed about it. And neither would Roth."

I scowled at yet another reminder of that particular failure, but I couldn't hold onto it. I couldn't dwell on everyone who'd died or I'd break down. I couldn't afford to do that, not while we were still stuck on this god-forsaken rock. It would only get someone killed, maybe even Sam this time, and I couldn't take that. So I took the guilt, the shame, the regret, and the terror and shoved it into the deepest, darkest corner of my mind. A weak, fragile smile touched my lips and I leaned into Sam.

"Yeah," I muttered quietly into her shoulder. "You're probably right."

She flashed an encouraging smile my way and squeezed my shoulder again.

"Taylor!" A concerned woman's voice cracked out, and I came rushing back to the present.

I flinched back, feeling like I'd just been punched. My chair rocked with me, loudly protesting the sudden motion until Hannah reached over and grabbed its arm. The heavy, bitter scent of her coffee filled my nose. My heart thundered in my ears. My tongue felt heavy and leaden. A slow, tight pain had settled deep into my shoulders and chest. Hannah pulled my chair back fully upright and her hand moved from it to my forearm.

"Welcome back, Taylor," she said gently, lightly squeezing my arm. Her palm was warm against my skin and it carried a firmness that helped me push the images and memories back into the depths of my mind. "Are you alright?"

I bit down the first response that came to mind. "Y-yeah," I said at length, after I'd stopped feeling like I'd bite her head off. She'd more than earned that much. "Yeah. I'm fine."

She gave me an inscrutable look.

"Really," I insisted. I tried for an encouraging smile but it felt closer to a grimace.

"No you're not," Hannah countered simply, no trace of doubt in her voice. "You went back to that island, of course you're not."

"I'm fine," I repeated, stressing the word more than was probably strictly necessary. I knew better than to deny it at this point. She understood the flashbacks and the memories too well for that to have a chance. "It was just a memory. It wasn't even a bad one. Not really."

"What was it?" she asked quietly. There was no pressure or expectations in her tone, just a simple request. She ducked down and met my stare evenly. Her eyes were soft with understanding, and absent the pity or condescension I'd seen in almost everyone who heard about the island. There wasn't a single sign of anything but an honest desire to help.

I sighed heavily and relented.

"It was the last meal we ate on the island." The words came out without inflection or emotion. I'd remember too much if they didn't. "Two of us had been killed a couple hours before and Jonah was having a kind of informal wake or funeral or something. I don't know what to call it. We all sat around the fire I'd managed to start and he was telling us funny stories about them as he cooked."

I paused and closed my eyes. The image of Jonah's mangled corpse flashed behind my eyes. I flinched. "He died the next morning."

A loud scraping noise filled the air. I opened my eyes to find Hannah shifting her chair around the table to sit next to me. She wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into her side in a one-armed hug.

"Thanks for telling me," Hannah said. The hug relaxed and she slid the small plate holding her so-far-untouched pastry over in front of me. "Now eat up. You look like you could use it."

One of my eyebrows rose of its own volition. It wasn't every day Hannah would pass up her favorite snack. She caught on to my disbelief and smirked at me, urging me on with a wave of her free hand. I gave her another weird look, shrugged, and bit into the pastry. It was surprisingly sweet.

She flashed a smile at my obedience. "Cheer up Taylor. I know you probably don't agree, but things are getting better."

She was right. I didn't agree. But I didn't want to keep talking about it, so I just shrugged.

"Speaking of getting better," I said, gently shrugging her arm off my shoulder. I turned and flashed her my best teasing smile. It didn't feel right on my face, and I'm sure it didn't look right, but I needed a topic change too much to let that stop me. "Have you made any progress?"

"Progress with wh-" she began, only to cut off abruptly as a light dusting of red touched her cheeks. My smile suddenly felt much more natural.

"I knew it!" I leaned in as I spoke, basking in her embarrassment. It was so rare to see Hannah at anything less than cool and composed, let alone flustered like this, and only the topic of the mystery man she'd set her eyes on could bring it out. The day she'd accidentally let him slip was a fun one. "There's no way he could resist. So, when's your first date?"

"It, it's not like that," she insisted. Her blush deepened visibly. "How many times do I have to tell you? He's just a friend."

"Right," I drawled, drawing the word out. My fingers made sarcastic air quotes as I continued. "A 'friend'. Is that what we're calling it now?"

"Yes," she said firmly and gave me the stink eye. My grin widened all on its own. "Because that's what it is."

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks." I silently thanked my mother for my ability to plagiarize the Bard.

"I knew I never should have mentioned him," she sighed, cradling her face in one hand. I could see the reluctant smile she was trying to hide. "You're never going to let it go, are you?"

"Nope," I confirmed. "Not until you stop hiding in denial."

"There is no denial," she denied firmly. Her blush finally started to fade as she regained her mental balance. "He's a friend, nothing more."

"That's not what your face says," I told her matter of factly. She mock-scowled at me then reached out and ruffled my hair, ignoring my squawked protest.

"Brat," she said fondly. There was no sting in the words. She smiled at me, a wicked and mischievous expression. "Since you're so interested in the topic, is there anyone that's caught your eye?"

"Not particularly," I said honestly. I barely knew how to talk to boys before I left for Yamatai, and I hadn't seen any point in trying since I got back. With everything else going on in my life, finding a boyfriend was the least of my priorities. Which was a good thing, right then. It meant Hannah couldn't return fire. "And I doubt it'll happen anytime soon. You'll have to find something else."

She frowned faintly at me, but as soon as she noticed I was looking it turned into a sly smile. "Don't worry, I intend to."

"I'm shaking in my boots," I said dryly.

"Good." Her head jerked in a stern nod, but the effect was diminished by the amused twinkle in her eyes. She took a moment to sip at her coffee, evidently relishing the taste, before continuing on a new old topic. "Anyway, have you given any more thought to what you're going to do after school?"

"I have," I told her. And I had. I'd thought about it a lot. I would have even without her prompting. But no matter how much time I spent dwelling on it, or how much thought I put into it, the answer never changed. "I still don't know."

Hannah nodded. She had expected that answer, the same one I gave her every time she asked the question. Then she responded the same way she always did.

"Do you have any idea why?" There was no judgment in her voice. No pity or condescension in her eyes. It was an honest question, just like it was every time.

"N-," I started on pure reflex before a thought stopped me. Surprise was thick in my voice as I continued. "Actually, I think I do."

Hannah's eyebrow arched up and she leaned forward. Her hand gently settled on my arm again and squeezed encouragingly. She didn't say anything, but her interest was clear.

"I think," I started, struggling to sort out my thoughts and voice them at the same time. "I think it's because I don't know what I want." I shook my head. That was mostly true, but it didn't sound right. "No. Well, yes, but that's not all of it." I fell silent for several long seconds as I wrestled with my thoughts. The concepts were right on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't find the words for them. "It's like, it's like it doesn't matter. I have no idea where my life is going or what I want, and I just don't _care_. It all seems so, so petty and minor and, and boring. Nothing feels important anymore. I, I wake up every morning and just coast through the day. I don't care what I'm doing and half the time I don't even know why I'm doing it."

The words poured out of me in a torrent. Frustrations I didn't even know I had welled up from deep within me. "I try to be normal, to go to school and be a good little girl, but I can't even tell what that is. Everywhere I look, I see people I don't understand doing things I don't understand for reasons I don't understand. Nothing makes sense anymore. Every day is a long string of nonsense I have to force myself to pretend to care about, and it's, it's..."

"Oh Taylor," Hannah said sadly. Her hand moved from my arm to over my shoulders and she pulled me into another one-armed hug. I was surprised to find fat tears slowly sliding down my cheeks as she pulled my face into her shoulder. She rubbed my back in slow, soothing circles and whispered nonsensical encouragements into my hair. My meager attempts to hold back collapsed, and thick choking sobs wracked my body. She held me and let me cry.

We sat like that for a long time. Conscious thought fled as I poured out months of frustration and anxiety in enormous, wrenching sobs. I was running on raw emotion and only distantly noticed the passing of time. Eventually though, my tears began to slow. The overwhelming, gut-wrenching force of my emotions dimmed enough for rational thought to start having a say again.

The second I'd recovered enough of my composure to realize what I'd been doing, I flinched out of her arms like I'd been burned. Embarrassment and shame coursed through me, forcing me to turn away. My cheeks were burning red. I could feel my body shrinking in on itself. I shouldn't have done that. I really shouldn't have done that.

"Feeling better?" Hannah asked calmly. I blinked. She put a finger on my chin, turned my head toward her, and gave me a small, empathetic smile. An enormous wet splotch of snot and tears spread from her shoulder down to her breast, but she ignored it in favor of wiping a napkin at the tear tracks all over my face. I caught her hand on the second pass, took the napkin from her, and tried to clean myself up.

"I, Yes. Maybe? I don't know," I muttered through the paper. I was mentally exhausted and so far beyond mortified that I didn't have words for it. I couldn't have lied to her then even if I'd wanted to.

"Good." Hannah's smile faltered when I still couldn't meet her eyes. She ducked down and forced me to meet her gaze. She held my gaze with firm, steady confidence. "That was healthy. Normal even. You've got nothing to be ashamed of."

I couldn't force words out through the weight of my embarrassment, so I settled for looking away. Hannah shook her head with a sigh and squeezed my shoulder. "Trust me on this Taylor. You should be feeling like that right now. The only cure is time. You'll figure out what you want when you're ready."


End file.
